While there’s a lot of folks here that know that I’m running for the Virginia House of Delegates this fall, other than the picture of my family on my profile link, I haven’t said much about them in my diaries here. Which is strange, actually, since they’re really the reason for everything I do. Being a dad is the best thing I’ve ever been, or ever will be. Being a husband is in close second, but the parents here get it, I’m sure.
I love all three of my kids with my entire heart and soul. But my relationship with my daughter is unlike that of my two sons, for a number of reasons. She’s the oldest- nine and a half going on fifteen now. It was her birth that really reset my life, having spent most of my late teens and early twenties being a complete ****up.
I started my nursing education when she was only about nine months old; I had to tote her from class to class because I couldn’t afford daycare. I don’t know how many miles we logged walking across UVA; my backpack over one shoulder, a pink-and-purple diaper bag with glitter hearts over the other, and a baby girl on my hip. Not your typical UVA student, for sure. And thank God I was in nursing school, with instructors who were incredibly understanding and supportive. Had it not been for that stroke of luck, I wouldn’t have made it through.
It was tougher than I like to admit, but she helped illustrate to me the consequences of failure. The toughest parts weren’t related to the academics, though. I remember once having to study for a pathophysiology test that would make or break my semester; I had my computer open, poring over my notes, and a small hand wrapped itself around the side of the screen, pushing it down.
“Play with me, daddy!” My daughter cooed at me, toothy grin spread across her face. The combination of her smile and her voice, innocent and pure, just wanting her daddy to get down on the floor and crawl around with her… there’s no words that’d do it justice.
But that test loomed over me. I knew how important it was (after all, I had mathematically modeled every possible score and it’s corresponding effect on my GPA). Still, your kids are only that age once- one time, exactly. That’s it. You don’t get another go-round. Those moments are fleeting, and if you miss them as they go by, then you’re out of luck.
I had to look her in the eye, and say words that I can still hear in my head, clear as day, even now.
“Not right now, baby. A little bit later, okay?”
Without hesitation, or a blip in her demeanor, she said “Okay, daddy!” and then bounced away to play with her Legos. But not being able to follow her over to play is something I’ll never forget.
Now, don’t get me wrong; the studying got me an “A” on that test, and when I applied to graduate school, the minimum requirement for your undergraduate GPA was 3.15; my final GPA was 3.154. But even knowing how important it was to make that sacrifice doesn’t make me any less wistful about missing that.
It’s been harder, too. Her mother and I were never married, and weren’t even in a relationship at the time we found out my daughter was on the way. We all lived under the same roof for economics’ sake, but when I graduated from nursing school, we knew it was time to part ways. And while we’ve been through custody proceedings that were acrimonious at times, we’ve been able to keep it civil for my daughter’s sake. Even at it’s very worst, I knew that letting my daughter be exposed to that was a recipe for long-term disaster, so I took pains to make sure she was as insulated from it as it was possible to be.
But it wears on my daughter; I know it does. She splits her time about equally between her mother and I; we live a ten-minute drive from her school and her mother’s apartment, luckily. But she sees other kids who get to go home to both of their parents; she sees kids who never have to bounce from house to house, at school or on TV. And though she puts on a brave face, and sometimes I think, hey; maybe she’s really just fine, and I’m imagining she’s struggling with it, I’ll find a reminder that I need to get real.
I’ve had plenty of sincere failures in my life; I graduated 250 out of 500 in my high school class because I simply wasn’t even interested in trying. I destroyed and ended my military career because I was “in love” (and who knows love better than a whiny teenager, amirite?). I once embarked on an evening of binge drinking that left me with about a .45 BAC, and it’s a miracle I survived. But none of them would even come close to comparing the failure of letting my daughter down; of ignoring her pain, or deluding myself into thinking it doesn’t bother her, even though it’s effectively all she’s ever known.
When I decided to run for the House of Delegates, this was one of the biggest things I considered before stepping up. I’d already missed so much time with all of my kids- my daughter, in particular- and it would only mean more. And not a little more; a LOT more. They call it public service for a reason; it’s not supposed to be easy. It’s not meant to be something embarked on idly.
Was fighting the toxic brand of politics that Trumpism represented really worth that sacrifice? Were the extra forty-hours-a-week over the next year, time away from her, worth it? And campaign work doesn’t schedule itself conveniently around my needs. I had three weekends of training in a row March; with the Virginia House Caucus, with the Sorensen Institute, and the Virginia Democratic Rural Caucus. That was gonna mean almost an entire month would pass before I’d be able to do more than see her, besides an hour or two afterschool on a handful of days.
She also made me promise I would take her to Glacier National Park, to go hiking and camping in the backcountry, before it became “just National Park”. We were going to go last year, but her little brother’s birth complicated that. So this was the year! Except now there’d be no time. And no time to go camping at all, in fact, as we usually did about a dozen times a year.
Another year on the books… another promise deferred.
It tore at me. It kept me up at night. Consider, too, the incumbent in the seat I’d be challenging had the biggest warchest in the Commonwealth of Virginia; an almost two decade incumbent with the ear of the Trump family (so much so, he was invited to spend election eve with Ivanka) in the Trump Winery’s district. Nobody had bothered to even challenge him for so much as a decade. In fact, when I broached the subject to a few people with some knowledge of local politics, their response could be pretty much summed up like this.
In the end, though, I felt pretty strongly, and still do, that our Republic was on a precipice; that, for the first time in American history, I was going to have to tell my kids that they’d have a lower standard of living than my own. That they wouldn’t have the same opportunities I did, that I took for granted. And it wouldn’t just be them; it’d be the sons and daughters of hundreds of thousands of other Virginians. And their children beyond them.
I decided I’d be damned if I was going to look at my kids when they were grown, shrug, and say, sorry, guys. It was good while it lasted. That I could have stood up for it and fought- but didn’t.
So. Here I am.
Today, she woke me up with a hug, a bowl of blueberries, a homemade granola bar, and a couple eggs over hard she made with grandma’s assistance. “Happy father’s day!” she said. I hugged her back and kissed her on her forehead. She smiled back at me, than came up and whispered in my ear.
“Today’s gonna be a great day!”
I had figured on writing the obligatory political father’s day post this morning, but I didn’t figure on pouring my heart out to y’all. And even the forty-five minutes it’s taken me to get here is that much time I’ve been away from her. So Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there who fight for their kids, however you do it, and provide for a better future for them.
Kellen Squire is an emergency department nurse from Barboursville, Virginia, running for the Virginia House of Delegates in the 58th District this fall.